Even when you see such a “spider” excavator on paper, you can be surprised a lot. He is even more amazing in real life. Thanks to the articulated joints and retractable supports, stabilizers and tilting wheels, such mechanisms have an incredibly wide range of possibilities. At the same time, the first models began to appear in the 60s of the last century. And the real flowering of design ideas in this direction came in the 70s, when a telescopic hydraulic cylinder appeared.
Modern walking excavators are even more powerful than traditional earthmoving machines. However, they are not widely used due to their more complex design and higher maintenance costs. The owners may not lock them up, because it is very difficult to find hunters to take possession of such equipment. Looking at how they work, you can admire this “holiday of hydraulic equipment”, realizing that all this was invented by people. It also comes to mind how difficult they are to manage.
These machines were originally designed to work on the steep snowy slopes of the Swiss Alps, where conditions are close to extreme. Their authors are considered to be two engineers – Josef Kaiser and Ernst Menzi. However, immersion in business ruined their friendship and they began to build “spiders” each in their own way, and their firms are still competing. Thanks to innovations and technologies, a working excavator looks like a steel animal, not a machine.
